Silent Screams
by PenguinofProse
Summary: Short angst-to-fluff OS based on Bellamy's failed rescue mission in 4.07.


**a/n Hello and welcome to a little angst-to-fluff story based on that moment where Bellamy's falling apart a bit in a rover in the middle of the black rain. Happy reading!**

Bellamy is fed up of screaming. He has been screaming, he thinks, almost since he landed on this damn planet, between trying to make his voice heard over the rabble of delinquents, and mourning Gina, and falling apart at Echo's mistaken tidings of Octavia's death. But never before has he screamed alone in an empty rover, and it is, he thinks, easily the most dispiriting of the lot, for all that nothing will rival the presumed loss of his sister for sheer heartbreak.

He's not crying loudly, now, not any more. He did that for the first hour or so that he was stuck here in this horrendous black-rain-mud, he properly yelled at no one, but now he's just sort of choking out broken silence, throat hurting almost as much as his chest.

How is it, that he can never save anyone?

It's pathetic. It's absolutely pathetic. He's always liked to think of himself as a bit protective of people, a bodyguard, or a big brother, whichever the occasion demands. So it is, he can't help but feel, absolutely and utterly _pathetic_ that he cannot actually do the one thing that he likes to think is his role.

The sad thing is, he's no better at anything else. So it looks like he is destined to spend the rest of his life letting people die on his watch, because watching people die will always be the only useful skill he has to offer the human race.

At least the rest of his life might be short, if Clarke's nightblood solution fails. If that's the only silver lining to be found in these black-rain clouds, then things really are getting a bit grim.

He has another go at reaching Mark on the radio, but he knows there's no point. A living man would not stay silent at a time like this. All the same, he presses the call button, offers a few empty words about how the rain will stop soon. Asks if they're still with him.

They're not still with him.

No one is with him.

He is alone.

"Bellamy?"

He jumps in shock. He would be less shocked, in fact, if it _were_ Mark, somehow improbably still screaming his death throes. Because even that, he thinks, would be less shocking than the fact that Clarke's voice is, for some reason, issuing from the radio.

Maybe he's dreaming. Or dead. Or perhaps he's finally achieved certifiable insanity.

"Clarke?" He might as well ask, he figures. If he's imagining things, no one need ever know.

"Hey. Are you – are you OK?" He's pretty sure the Clarke of his imagination doesn't stammer like that. But, then again, he's pretty sure the real Clarke doesn't stammer very often, either.

"Fine." He lies. That's his self-appointed role, isn't it? To protect people? So he needs to protect Clarke from the truth, now.

"I heard about the black rain. Kane said you went out on a rescue mission." She tells him, even though he didn't ask. Sure, he's wondering why on Earth she's calling him just now, but somehow he doesn't quite have the energy to ask questions.

"Yeah."

"What the hell were you thinking, Bellamy? Why would you put yourself in danger like that?"

He shrugs. She can't hear a shrug, he knows. But his voice isn't up to much, just now.

Must be all that screaming.

"Bellamy? Bellamy, are you there?" He can hear the rising tide of panic in her voice, and he rather wonders why she's bothering to get that worked up about whether or not he is, in fact, there. "Are you OK? Please tell me you're still there."

"I'm fine." He tells her. Two whole syllables. He's proud of that.

"I'm sorry." She tells him, which seems a bit of a non sequitur, but he's in no mood to challenge it. "I heard from Kane that – that you lost contact with Mark. I'm so sorry, Bellamy, but thank God you're OK."

"Try telling them that." He bites out.

"Please don't." He can practically hear her doing that thing where she purses her lips a little and shakes her head. That thing that says she's hurting, but she's Clarke Griffin, and she doesn't have time to hurt. "You can't think like that, Bellamy. You did your best."

"I failed." He points out, somewhat choked by that scream brewing in his throat again. "They're dead."

"That's not your fault."

He can feel it building now, feel it rising, that overwhelming urge to to let loose with an empty roar.

"I can't protect anyone." Words burst out of him, instead of nothingness, much to his surprise. "I couldn't protect my sister. She was my responsibility and I failed. My mum passed out and she was there, she was in my hands, so helpless, and now, what is she? Is she even alive? What is she? I -"

"You didn't fail, Bellamy." Clarke cuts him off at last. He was beginning to wonder how long she would put up with listening to him hate himself. "You did everything you could for her. You have always done everything you can for her. You came to the ground for her, didn't you? And you -"

"Why are you here, Clarke?" It is not a scream that interrupts her attempts to make him feel better, but it is, at the very least, a growl.

It takes him a moment too long to remember that she's not _here_. She's so very many miles away, and he is alone, but for a voice and the ghosts in the rain.

"Because you were here for me - there for me." She corrects herself impatiently. "When I was trying to write that list."

"Of course I was." He is a little confused by this conversational development. "Where else would I have been? I wasn't going to leave you to do that alone."

"So here I am, now. Not leaving you to do this alone."

He knows he ought to reply to that, but it's such a startling idea that he doesn't really know where to begin.

"Thank you." It's inadequate, but it's a start.

"You're wrong, by the way." She informs him mildly. "You've always done great at protecting me. Even back in the beginning, when you had no reason to, when I fell in that pit and you still pulled me out. And so many times since then -"

"I count once."

"What?"

"Once. In Polis, when you were in the City of Light. I'm pretty sure that's the only time I've ever successfully protected you."

"You just don't get it, do you?" In a rather unexpected development, she is half way to screaming, now, and the loss of control is so unlike her that it jolts him out of his storm cloud, somehow. It makes him wake up and take notice.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't understand that I'm not just talking about times you've pointed a gun at someone for me! There have been some, sure, but – that's not what matters to me. I'm talking about all those times you've kept me going and shown me there's still hope. Kept me _centred_, like Jaha said. You've saved me so many times and in so many ways, and I don't know what I'd do without you."

"I think I've worked out what I do without you." He admits, trying to remember how to speak normally. "It seems I fall apart a bit when you're not here."

"I think I do that, too. We've spent today trying to decide whether to put someone in a radiation chamber to save the human race."

He can't imagine that. He simply can't. "I'm so sorry, Clarke. That's awful. I know that you'll make the best choice you can."

She breathes out a loud sigh, a hoarse rush of air into the radio mouthpiece. "I hope so."

There is nothing good to say to that. There is nothing good to say to any of this.

"I want us to survive this." She murmurs, just as the silence is growing too long. "I want _you_ to survive this, and live in some beautiful world where your sister is safe and you're happy. And I want you not to always have to be the strongest person I know."

He laughs at that. He cannot help it, somehow, despite the earnestness of her words. "Nice dream, Princess."

"It's stupid, I know." She starts babbling. "Sorry, forget I ever said that -"

"I don't want to forget it." He insists. "I want to remember it, and I want the same thing for you, too."

"Nice dream." She echoes. "I want it, though. Living in some beautiful peaceful world without all of these impossible life or death decisions."

He steels his courage. Takes a deep breath. Prepares for the most frightening seven words of his life.

"Living in some beautiful peaceful world _together_."

"I'd like that."

It's still raining, of course. And this rover is still very firmly stuck in the mud. And Mark is still dead, just as Atom is still dead and Wells is still dead and Charlotte is still dead and – well, awful though it is, he tends to lose track after that, if he's being honest.

But somehow, he no longer feels like screaming. In fact, at risk of being just a little pathetic, he rather feels like _singing_.

**a/n Thanks for reading!**


End file.
